http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/02/bill-gates-supports-controversial-climate-change-plan/

Jesus Christ.

If climate change is really the kind of existential threat that some allege -- why would you not want to look at ALL the alternative options for forestall it?

We already do a certain amount of management of the environment (e.g. land use) for our own benefit, why should the atmosphere be a priori excluded from such possibilities?

You do understand Bill Gates' "plan" is to dump trillions of tons of toxic industrial wastes into the oceans, right?

Define "We", mobyD. If you could confine the effects to (say) the Dakotas or the Nothern Hemisphere you might get my grudging assent - but you can't in sthe seas or in the air.

The law of unintended consequences can be worse for well-intentioned, but large-scale actions, than even for simple neglect.

I wonder how many sea creatures will die, for instance.

Try it out on Mars. If it doesn't work and destroys that planet, no harm. If it works, then we can talk about trying it here as well.

But Bill's plans to do global science experiments that have a high likelihood of dooming us all, to sate his own curiosity?

Well fuck that, fuck Bill, and fuck everyone who supports that madness.

There is a simple geo-engineering scheme that reduces the CO2 content, and that is the grating of CO2 absorbing minerals and just dispose them on beaches or other lands where a very thin layer of sand doesn't do harm, which includes most farmland anyway.

Olivine is harmless, and naturally occurring, and an ideal candidate for this procedure.

This scheme has the advantage that there is no complex cycle on which it depends: it directly reduces CO2, without secondary effects. (apart from the cost of the grating). The total amount of olivine to process to compensate for fossil fuels is known and manageable.

Oh, really?  How much oil do you have to burn to process and transport the Olivine?

And what IS the impact of "just reducing CO2"?

I don't think he's planning to start tomorrow. He's planning to fund some preliminary research into future possibilities.

More knowledge before making decisions or taking actions, is a good thing.....well it is to rational people... but apparently not to alarmist green luddites who prefer to close off entire avenues of research (geoengineering, GM, nuclear, etc.).

The mentality is really no different to fundamentalist luddities who want to close off research they don't like (stem cells, evolution, SETI, etc.)

Oh, really?  That's good.  So why did Idiot call him "Dr. Evil"?

By the way, you do realise some of the proposed geo-engineering schemes, that you're opposed to even discussing including things like painting city building roofs white instead of mostly dark colors?

Arguendo, assume AGW is real and serious, and this go someway to reduce the impact (lives lost, fields flooded, Maldives underwater, climate refuges, etc, etc.)... why would you oppose (a) researching it, and (b) doing it if it's likely to help?

Some greens apparently do....the argument is that saving lives/fields/islands/etc. this way reduces the pressure on us to decarbonize!  In other words, they want the eco-catastrophe to be as bad as possible, so we are more likely to follow their economic/social agenda.

Why did idiot...?

Why does he do anything?

He finds the most alarmist extreme article he can find* - and then he exagerrates** that still further...

Doesn't he do that every fucking day on CoT?

*In this case, an extreme green piece that refers to one of the most extreme possibilities for geo-engineering, and which itself exagerrates**

**HTF do you spell exagerrates?

You enter "xagerate" into Google, click "Search", it says "did you mean exaggerate", and then you click on the matching wiki entry:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exaggerate

It IS one of those words that, the more you think about it, the harder it is to spell.

> Oh, really?  How much oil do you have to burn to process and transport the Olivine?

Only a fraction of the equivalent oil that it compensates for.

You don't have to transport the olivine very far by the way, you can grind and deposit it in the neighbourhood where you find it, and you can find it all over the world. The CO2 will find the ground olivine just fine :-)

In fact by doing this you are just accelerating a natural process a bit.